


Midwinter Spring

by CassieIngaben



Category: The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:26:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25114609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CassieIngaben/pseuds/CassieIngaben
Summary: The grease spots dotting the paper boat shone brighter, as the water reflected and magnified the sunlight, a tiny shower of cold sparks on the minutely rippled surface.An obbo, winter light, chips-stained newspaper.
Relationships: William Bodie/Ray Doyle
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Midwinter Spring

Doyle looked up at the sky, shielding his eyes with a mangy mitten-clad hand. He then lowered it and blew on his half-frozen fingers, white clouds of breath ephemerally veiling the cold early morning sunlight. He shivered, and shuffled his feet a bit, scuffed shoes giving no real protection in the nippy day. To make matters worse, he could feel the bench's dampness from the overnight rain seeping through his patched trousers into his bones. He looked up again; there was Bodie, limping up towards their park bench, dirty ragged coat waving hello at the world with each uneven step.

Bodie plonked himself heavily on the bench, and shoved two oily, newspaper-wrapped bundles into Doyle's lap. "Grub, Mrs Doolittle. Luverly scoff from the all-night chippie!"

"God, Bodie, stop hamming it up... you'll get our cover blown!" snapped Doyle. "Did you find a loo, by the way? I'll be bursting soon."

"Nope. The chippie had no loo, pub's closed, and the library refused me entry. And me a member of the book of the month club too!" mourned Bodie.

"Damn! What did you do, then?"

"Second alley to the left. Not the first nor the last time, I'll tell you."

"Right. Don't eat my chips or I'll kill you. Back in a mo." Doyle started to sprint towards the alley in question, then remembered to drag his feet drunkenly, and to mime swigging from his empty lager can as he staggered onwards.

By the time Doyle was back, Bodie had gone through most of his chips, and the main article on the newspaper wrapping. "Did you know that the Queen's corgis've been sick again? Puked all over the Prime Minister's shoes."

"You're making that up."

"Cross my heart, it's true!"

Doyle recovered his chips, suspiciously eyeing the package's size, then Bodie's innocent eyes. "Told you to lay off me food," he scolded mildly, and bit into his first chip, chewing open-mouthed to cool the still-hot potato.

They ate together in companionable silence for a minute or two, then Bodie crumpled his paper, vainly trying to wipe the worst of the grease from his fingers. "Wish this obbo was over. I'd kill for a long, hot shower. And soap. And a nice cuppa, with plenty of whisky in it..."

Doyle sighed in understanding, then went on chewing and reading his own scrap of paper, eyes scrunched in bliss, and to shield them from the slanting sun.

Bodie looked up and down the path, then went back to fiddling with his wrapping. He salvaged a strip of paper that had been miraculously spared from the chip grease, and ripped it off. He started idly folding it, unkempt head bent.

Doyle finished his food in turn, threw his wrapping away and burped, then stared idly at Bodie's hands. Little patches of grease were still smeared on the square fingers, stained black with printer's ink. As Bodie teased the bit of paper, the sun caught on the oil and shone bright as a tiny star, then was gone.

"There!" said Bodie finally, proudly showing a lopsided boat. Among the mess of grease and smudged ink, Doyle could still read 'royal corgis si' on a corner, just where the figurehead would be.

Doyle picked up the paper boat and studied it carefully, while Bodie once again checked the path. Then Bodie grabbed his boat out of Doyle's hands and bent down and to his left; holding the little paper thing by its tip, he delicately rested it on a shallow pool of dirty rainwater just beside their feet. The boat tilted, wavered, sank a bit, then stabilised, and started bobbing towards the centre of the pool. The grease spots shone brighter, as the water reflected and magnified the sunlight, a tiny shower of cold sparks on the minutely rippled surface.

Bodie stared at the fragments of light for a while, eyes fixed on a faraway memory. Doyle was captivated by the small scene, and tore his eyes off it only to scan the path once again.

Finally Bodie spoke, still absorbed in his contemplation: "Remember the story of the tin soldier, Doyle? He was a tin soldier with only one leg, but he did his job proudly. Then he fell in love with a beautiful ballerina on a music box, and vowed to protect her. When a big rat took her, he jumped on a paper boat to rescue her, and went down a street drain, even into the sewage, standing tall and unblinking at the helm." Bodie paused, mouth pursed in thought, and scratched his head. Doyle carefully said nothing, and held still. Bodie went on: "When I was a kid there was this big drain down our street, with a manhole. It was only covered by a grille, and you could see as the water went down in the sewers. If the grille had broken, the hole was big enough for one of us to fall into and drown. We all dared each other to stand on the grille and jump up and down, the harder the better."

Bodie stopped, and checked the path yet again.

After a few minutes, since he didn't give any signs of going on, Doyle risked a question. "So what happened to the tin soldier? Did he rescue the ballerina?"

Bodie shrugged, grim. "He did, but then the kid who owned them got tired of him, because he only had one leg, and threw him into the stove. The soldier melted into a little tin heart. Can't remember what happened to the ballerina. Probably married the rat and had a herd of dancing mice." Bodie raised his hands in front of him and wiggled his fingers, whistling a lively little tune, which his eyes didn't reflect.

Doyle stared at Bodie's face: his slitted eyes were fixed on the sparkles of sun in the pool, the now-sodden boat slowly unravelling once more into a strip of newspaper. Doyle shifted his gaze to the path, then said: "Maybe the ballerina followed the soldier into the stove. Maybe she had wings, to rescue him before he melted. Or maybe they both melted together into one heart."

Bodie looked up at Doyle, soft eyes and softer mouth. They broke off to look at the still-deserted path. The sun shone on the pool as the strip of newspaper slowly sank to its dirty murky bottom.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally published in the zine Writetime 2002. I'm now posting it to the AO3 as it is.


End file.
